With television coverage and online poker websites, poker has become extremely popular. Accordingly, poker attracts larger player pools and prize money. Despite the popularity, poker continues to suffer from drawbacks. One primary drawback to poker is the bad beat. Bad beats occur when a poker hand having a high probability of winning ultimately loses. For example, in Texas Hold'em, bad beats typically occur when a low probability river card appears to turn a high probability winning hand into a losing hand.
Poker rooms utilize bad beat jackpots to combat the occurrence of bad beats. In most instances, the bad beat jackpots are premised on a first four of a kind losing to a stronger, second four of a kind. The bad beat jackpots are split among all players at the relevant poker table. However, the bad beat jackpots are rarely won since the likelihood of two four of kinds occurring on the same hand is extremely rare.
Thus, there is a need for a more versatile poker game and useful bad beat type system. Advantageously, the bad beat system should be applicable to any poker game utilizing common cards and multiple betting rounds.